Senator Schumer's plan to tax people who leave the US.

1
Sen. Schumer is upset that the US may miss out on $67M in taxes due to Eduardo Saverin renouncing his naturalized US citizenship. So the Senator wants to place a huge tax on capital gains of anyone who renounces their citizenship and also ban them from re-entering the US. Take their money and kick them out the door. Sounds like the old scheme of rolling drunken sailors but being applied by the government.

25

19

17

“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Tom Goodman, Saverin’s spokesman, told Bloomberg News in an email.

I can see how it would be "impractical" to be a US citizen and have to pay taxes owed.

I do find it annoying that a person accepted as a citizen by naturalization now finds it financially inconvenient to remain one.

And at the end of the day, actually I could not care less about Saverin, or Schumer.

A fair tax structure would be a nice thing in the US. It would not be kind to either of these people. I don't hold my breath waiting for fairness.

Suppose he wants to come back? He is no longer a citizen. I think he might be bound by our Visa requirements. Who knows how long his request could be lost?

Normally he would be able to return to the US on a tourist visa just like anyone else in the world who is not a terrorist or threat. This bill would permanently ban anyone who gives up their US citizenship from ever returning or visiting the US. It sounds like a punishment more fitting for a grade school playground than a nation. On the plus side, I doubt his bill will make it very far.

I'd love to see our nation switch to the FairTax but it's going to take a lot more work before that would happen.

I can understand how a citizen living abroad can find it difficult to still be a US citizen and still have to file US taxes as well as file taxes for where they are living. Filing taxes for one country is usually enough of a PIA for a person. Filing for two countries would be double the pleasure.

This entire proposal is a load of horse you-know-what and amounts to political grandstanding. No surprise there.

Schumer proposes allowing the IRS to unilaterally decide whether one's choice to renounce U.S. citizenship is due to tax implications or some other politically acceptable reason. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

So he wants to create a special class of expatriats and bar them from the country. Really? Renounce U.S. citizenship to go fight for Allah...no problem, come back. But have a beef with excessive taxation and a structure that actually favors foreigners over U.S. citizens and you're on the no-enter list for life? What a buffoon!

How about working to recreate a tax system that doesn't punish earnings, doesn't favor non-citizens and does't allow blowhard politicians to spend money we don't have?

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC's George Stephanopolous on "This Week" that his move was "already against the law," likely referring to legislation written in the 1990s by now-Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

Boehner said that the legislation was unnecessary, given the law on the books, but that he would support it nonetheless. "If it's necessary, I'd surely support it," Boehner concluded.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who as a congressman in 1996 authored an amendment that excludes from reentry into the U.S. citizens who renounced their citizenship for tax purposes, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday, asking her to enforce the law -- for the first time -- by barring Saverin.

There is already a law on the books preventing him from re-entry, but it hasn't been enforced. It's at the very bottom of the pagehere. It details general classes of aliens ineligible to gain entrance into the United States. And the law specifically references people in Saverin's category:

Former citizens who renounced citizenship to avoid taxation.-Any alien who is a former citizen of the United States who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States is excludable.

This entire proposal is a load of horse you-know-what and amounts to political grandstanding. No surprise there.

Schumer proposes allowing the IRS to unilaterally decide whether one's choice to renounce U.S. citizenship is due to tax implications or some other politically acceptable reason. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

So he wants to create a special class of expatriats and bar them from the country. Really? Renounce U.S. citizenship to go fight for Allah...no problem, come back. But have a beef with excessive taxation and a structure that actually favors foreigners over U.S. citizens and you're on the no-enter list for life? What a buffoon!

How about working to recreate a tax system that doesn't punish earnings, doesn't favor non-citizens and does't allow blowhard politicians to spend money we don't have?

How is the US Tax system "favoring" foreigners and non citizens, in your view?

How is the US Tax system "favoring" foreigners and non citizens, in your view?

He stands to save $600 million in taxes based upon his income from the FB IPO if he files as a non-citizen. Why an American citizen would have to pay $600 million more than a non-citizen for the same income based upon the same transaction is a puzzlement to me, but clearly the tax code does not favor a U.S. citizen in this instance.